Photos: China’s Deadly Pipeline Blasts

Smoke rose from oil refineries after an explosion in Qingdao. The first explosion occurred in the city's Huangdao district as workers tried to fix the pipeline that began leaking Friday morning, causing oil to spill into the city's drainage pipe system.
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A nurse attends to an injured man at a Qingdao hospital. The blasts left more than 50 people dead, plus more than 130 injured, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing provincial health authorities.
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A bus damaged by the immense force of the explosion. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the blasts a wake-up call for increased scrutiny of the nation's network of pipelines.
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A wrecked car is seen lifted onto the side of a damaged road. The pipeline explosion was one of the most destructive industrial accidents in China so far this year.
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A rescuer with a sniffer dog searches for survivors. Fu Chengyu, the chairman of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, apologized to the city and said the company, which operates the pipeline, was cooperating with authorities to investigate the causes of the blasts.
Associated Press…

The damaged pipeline, which connects oil depots in Huangdao with processing facilities in the city of Weifang roughly 170 kilometers away, had been in use since 1986, according to Xinhua. The pipeline, which can ship about 200,000 barrels a day, was built in 1986 and stretches about 250 kilometers in total.
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According to local authorities, a separate explosion occurred at roughly the same time after petroleum leaked into a nearby estuary. Six of those killed were firefighters affiliated with a Sinopec oil depot in Huangdao, according to Xinhua.
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Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, has previously faced protests and complaints from residents in other Chinese cities over its efforts to build oil refineries and other petrochemical plants near densely populated areas.
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Oil blotters and fences control leaked oil. Petroleum from the pipeline has contaminated some 3,000 square meters of water and 18,000 people have had to be evacuated, according to authorities.
Aly Song/Reuters…

The destruction of property was extensive. Xi Jingping was quoted by official media as saying that safety must be improved in the pipeline industry, and he called for stronger inspections and punishments for violations.
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Roads were reduced to rubble, vehicles flipped on their sides and windows shattered in nearby residential buildings.
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A car flipped on its roof. President Xi also said pipeline operators should continue to carry out inspections and enforce a "zero-tolerance" policy for violations.
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China's President Xi Jinping holds the hand of a patient who was injured in the oil pipeline blast during a visit to a hospital in Qingdao.
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A pair of oil pipeline explosions in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao killed more than 50 people in one of the country’s most destructive industrial accidents this year.

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